


The New Boots

by cest_what



Series: Skeleton-verse [3]
Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Gen, Ghosts, Inventors, Kid Fic, Skeletons, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cest_what/pseuds/cest_what
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon has a new invention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Boots

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [LJ](http://cest-what.livejournal.com/22120.html) May 2009.

Brendon's newest invention was the cleverest thing he had ever made. He carried it into the old house in a box and set it down on the floor.

Jon was lying on his back in a pool of sunlight, his legs propped over each other. He rolled to his feet and wandered over. He was chewing on a bit of straw.

Brendon grinned at him, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Do you want to see?"

Jon rocked back on his heels, pushing his hands into his pockets. "What is it?"

Brendon scrambled forward, opening the box. He reached in and set the new boots on top of the box. They still mostly looked like ordinary boots: they were big and brown, with thick, bright blue laces tied up the front. The only things making them strange were the extra bands at the top to tie them to your legs, and the very thick black soles that were actually magnets, only maybe Jon couldn't tell that.

"They're not finished yet," Brendon warned. He bounced again. "I'm going to finish them and test them out here!"

Jon had dropped onto his knees. He looked sleepily curious. "What are they for?" he asked, twisting back to look up at Brendon.

"They're for walking upside down!" Brendon said, the grin bursting out of him again. He dropped down beside Jon and Jon looked at him with wide eyes. "Like on the ceiling?" he asked.

Brendon nodded excitedly.

Ryan poked his head around the tall door of the jumbled kitchen. His hat was askew and his coat sleeve was covered in whitewash dust. He brushed at it ineffectually as he came out, bone fingers catching on the cloth. Spencer drifted after him.

"What's that?" Ryan asked, looking at the boots warily.

Brendon bounced on his toes again. "They're my new invention!"

Ryan looked upset. "What about the other invention?"

Brendon spared a look for the familiar humped shape under the blanket in the corner. It was probably his imagination that it already looked tired and abandoned. "I'm going to finish that one," Brendon said uncertainly. "Just, I'm finishing this one _first_."

Ryan pushed his hands into his pockets and looked mulish.

_"Ryan,"_ Brendon said. "They're going to _walk upside down_."

"Like on the ceiling?" Spencer asked, his voice going excited. Ryan took his hands out of his pockets, looking a little bit more interested.

Jon grinned, leaning back on his hands, and kicked Brendon's ankle. _"Awesome,"_ he said.

*

It took two more days for Brendon to finish the Walk Upside Down Boots.

Ryan had started going over and patting the big invention under the blanket whenever he came into the room. Brendon wasn't sure whether he was supposed to notice that. He couldn't spare it much attention anyway; the Walk Upside Down Boots were taking all his time.

Then they were ready. Brendon stood up and shouted. Ryan immediately clattered down the stairs, holding onto the banister. He tripped and lost his foot at the bottom, but Jon leaned over and caught him before he could fall. Ryan gave him a shy smile of thanks, then straightened his hat before he put his foot back on.

Brendon wished they would hurry up and pay attention.

Spencer settled in the air next to Brendon, his legs crossed. "Is it finished?" he asked, very politely. There was excitement in his face, though. Brendon grinned and wished for a second that he could hug Spencer. He hugged himself instead, squeezing himself around the middle.

"I think I need people to help me carry things," he said, looking down.

In the end Brendon carried the boots (they were pretty heavy with the thick magnet soles) and Jon carried the other halves of the magnets (they were _really_ big and heavy) and Ryan walked behind Brendon carrying the trailing ties and the most important part – the cord with the button to turn the electricity on.

Jon took the magnets right up to the attic and laid them carefully on the floor, foot-width apart, under Brendon's directions. Then they climbed down the ladder and Brendon sat down and pulled the boots over his feet. Spencer made him check the lacings twice. Brendon thought they might be cutting off his circulation a bit when Spencer got him to tighten them again, but he was thrumming with too much energy to care.

"Careful," Spencer said as Brendon clomped up the ladder again, Jon holding it steady. The boots were really heavy.

At the top of the ladder, Brendon held on tightly with his hands and curled his legs against his chest, twisting around until he was upside down, his arms shaking with effort. Spencer slipped through the ceiling and called, "To the left! Move your right foot, Brendon!" Then, "Now!" and Ryan took a breath and pressed the button on the cord down with both hands.

Brendon felt his foot clamp up onto the ceiling, pulling him off the ladder. He waved his left foot around a bit wildly until he found the other magnet block.

Ryan and Jon were shouting excitedly from below. Brendon made grabby hands for Ryan to pass him the button, and Ryan carefully climbed the ladder to give it to him, grinning all the way. Brendon stretched out sideways and caught it, fitting it into his palm.

There were two settings. Full-strength kept you in one place, safe; half-strength let you move. Brendon flicked his left foot to half-strength and slid it across the ceiling, teetering in place a bit. Through the ceiling, he heard Spencer excitedly shout, "The magnet's moving!" Brendon could feel it dragging across the floor up there. He flicked the setting to full and his foot clamped up again. Then he flicked the setting on his right foot, sliding it across the ceiling too and feeling the magnet drag after it.

All the blood was rushing to his head and giving him a headache, and his legs were aching and shaky, but he was _walking on the ceiling!_

He got as far as the light fitting in the middle of the room before he ran into trouble. That time when he pulled his foot forwards, he had to heave, and then there was suddenly nothing. He shouted, teetering on one foot. His shirt was bunching up under his neck and he could see Ryan's and Jon's worried upside-down faces through his dangling fringe.

Spencer dropped below the ceiling, his face agitated. "It got stuck!" he said. "There's a suitcase in the way. I can't move it!"

Brendon flailed his loose leg around, but he couldn't feel the other magnet anywhere. He decided his only hope was to move his right foot back as quickly as he could so that he could reach further with the left.

He pulled the button up against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut, and flicked the setting to half.

His foot came free with a sucking sensation and he tumbled away from the ceiling in a sickening rush.

Landing really, really hurt. There was crashing and splintering everywhere.

After a moment Jon's face appeared above Brendon, looking worried.

"Ow," Brendon said, his voice pitiful. He was lying in the wreckage of an ancient velvet couch. He feebly waved his arms and legs.

Jon's face cleared a bit and he reached down and hauled him out. He let Brendon sit on the edge of the broken couch, balancing him with an arm around his shoulders.

Ryan and Spencer drifted over, arguing about whether Spencer should have noticed that the suitcase was in the way and shouted a warning.

"Did you break anything?" Ryan asked Brendon as they came up. "I fell out of the attic once and all the bones in my shoulders came apart." He looked worried too.

Brendon rested his head on Jon's shoulder and stared at his big heavy shoes. "I'm fine," he said, even though he wasn't. He hurt all _over_. And he'd broken a couch. He'd done that a lot of times, actually. He felt like his entire life had been full of older brothers and sisters staring down at him with longsuffering groans after another failed invention, and telling each other, 'Brendon broke something. Again.'

Jon kicked at one of the boots on Brendon's feet. "Hey," he said. "That was phenomenal, B."

Brendon peered up at him. "Yeah?"

"Totally," Jon said. "You _walked on the ceiling_. For like, two minutes or something."

Brendon sighed. Yeah, two minutes. He shifted again, and winced. "You know," he said, starting to get an idea, "you know, the problem with that idea was that it was too easy to fall down. What I need –" He stopped, thinking about it. "What I _need_, he continued, and there were plans unfolding dizzily before him now, "are boots that make you go _up_, rather than fall down."

*

Brendon didn't know why he hadn't thought of Rocket Boots to begin with. They were clearly far cooler than boots that let you walk upside down. Brendon pulled on his work goggles and started on the modifications straight away.

Spencer seemed to have taken his argument with Ryan to heart, and he'd decided that he was personally responsible for Brendon's health and safety. He hovered about insisting that Brendon stop and eat at ridiculously close intervals. Brendon thought, irritated at being made to stop when he'd just worked out how to wire the jet propulsion properly, that Spencer must have been a ghost so long that he'd forgotten how often people needed to eat. Brendon could practically go days without food, if he wanted to.

Ryan leaned bird-light against Brendon's shoulder while he worked, fixing fascinated eyes on the boots as they changed, and occasionally laughing and making faces at Spencer.

It took three days to finish the new modifications. When they were done Brendon carried them into the very middle of the entrance hall, with the empty dome above him and the landing to nowhere off to one side.

"Is everyone ready?" Brendon asked, standing up straight. The boots were even taller, now, with the rockets built into the soles; they made Brendon taller than Jon.

Jon took a step back, pulling Ryan with him, and gave Brendon a thumbs up. Spencer rolled onto his stomach in the air, resting his chin on his hands and watching with excited anticipation.

Brendon pulled his helmet on and tugged his goggles down over his eyes. Then he crouched down, setting off the timer on his boots. He squeezed his fists by his side and tilted his head back, fixing his eyes on the ceiling disappearing in dimness high above him.

The ground exploded beneath him.

For a second the world rushed past, deafening and buffeting, a huge force pressing on Brendon's feet. Then a window was rushing at full-speed towards him and Brendon crashed through, helmet-first.

He rolled four times and came to a stop, roof tiles digging into his back.

Brendon gasped up at the sky.

He was on a sloping roof, which he realised dazedly must be the roof of the kitchen. There were ferns and lichen growing between the red tiles – one frond was tickling Brendon's nose.

He sat up, groaning, and pulled his goggles off. They were cracked all across one side.

Spencer shot through the wall, staring around him. Brendon waved one hand at him, beginning to be embarrassed.

Spencer smiled huge and bright and shouted back through the broken window, "It's okay!"

"I broke the window," Brendon said, his voice coming out winded-sounding. He fidgeted. His brothers and sisters always sighed at him when he broke windows. They said they thought he did it on purpose, sometimes. He didn't, though. He just wasn't always very good at judging distances.

"You went _so fast_," Spencer said, wide-eyed. "I couldn't even see you!" Then his eyes fell on Brendon's boots and he blinked. "Your feet are smoking now, though."

Brendon looked down and yelped. He scrambled to get the boots off. His feet, underneath, were very pink. He touched them, gingerly. He'd failed _twice_, now. Spencer and Ryan and Jon were going to lose patience with him. He chewed on his lip, feeling panicked at the thought.

But, "I did go pretty fast," he said, looking up at Spencer again.

"You were _invisible_," Spencer said. "More than a ghost, even." His eyes were wide.

Brendon nodded. It had _almost_ worked. He curled his hands, determination settling over him. The rockets, he thought, were maybe _too_ fast. But it had been cool to fly through the air like that. What he needed, maybe, was a slower way to whizz through the air. With safer landings.

*

"This time they're going to work," Brendon told Jon, around the screwdriver in his mouth. "I promise."

Jon was playing with dust devils on the floor. He blinked at Brendon. "Sure," he said.

Brendon frowned, concentrating fiercely as he pieced together the boots' new soles. He was going to prove himself. He couldn't stand it if Ryan stopped casting big-eyed looks at the invention under the blanket in the corner, or if Spencer stopped watching rapt as Brendon tinkered with calibrations, or if Jon stopped sprawling next to him, stretched out in a patch of sunshine ready to hand Brendon things when he needed them.

Brendon's inventions had been going wrong all his life. This time he was going to prove himself.

*

The third boots were the most colourful. Ryan clapped his hands when he saw the big, bright orange springs attached to the soles.

Jon clambered onto the roof with Brendon, holding him steady while he climbed into the boots.

Brendon peered over the edge of the roof, where the tiles were a red, uneven line against the green. Ryan and Spencer were small figures below. Spencer was only a silver smudge in the bright sunshine. Ryan beside him was a tiny figure in a huge coat and a hat with a yellow feather. Beyond them, and beyond the overgrown sweep of lawn and the hedge and the line of the road, the lake winked wide and blue.

Brendon gulped.

"Did you tighten the straps?" Jon asked. Brendon nodded.

"One," Brendon said, counting himself down. "Two." Then in a whisper, _"Three."_

He jumped.

The lawn came up _so fast_. Brendon stumbled as the first spring slammed into the grass, and then he was pushing away, rocketing to the side. He scrambled to get his feet under him again just in time to push against the ground again, just beyond the hedge, then he was bouncing away again, the wind pushing his hair into his face and oh _wow_.

He was careening in huge hops, with no hope of controlling his direction. It was terrifying and thrilling and then there was the road, and then there was water glittering and Brendon plunged feet first into the lake. Freezing water went up his nose and closed over his mouth and he slowed, choking and breathing in water.

The boots gently bounced off the muddy bottom of the lake.

Brendon broke the surface, coughing and gasping.

Spencer was already hovering over the lake, scanning the surface. Behind him, Jon and Ryan were squeezing through the hedge. They dashed across the road, reaching the edge of the lake, scrambling and holding their sides.

Brendon spat out water, feeling winded. Then he began slowly paddling towards the shore. The boots felt heavy and unwieldy, and the springs were getting caught in reeds.

Spencer retreated to the shore, waiting for Brendon there with Jon and Ryan.

Brendon dragged himself out, flopping onto his back on the bank like a beached fish. He starfished his arms and legs, feeling shaken and achy and like he didn't want to meet anybody's gaze.

"Hey." Ryan's spindly silhouette blocked out the sun. The feather in his hat bopped in the breeze. He was twisting his finger bones together. "Brendon?"

"Ugh," Brendon said. He closed his eyes.

He'd been so close. This version of the boots could have been so, so awesome. Except he'd fallen in the lake, and that was pretty much the definition of not awesome.

Jon flopped down next to Brendon, his bare toes poking into Brendon's leg. Brendon cracked his eyes open. Jon grinned at him. "The _lake_," he said.

Brendon sat up, unlacing the boots and pushing them away. He hugged his sodden knees. "They almost worked, though, right?" he said in a small voice. There was water trickling down his fringe into his eyes.

"Hey," Jon said. "Hey, no, they totally worked. They were _awesome_. You were like – hopping, like a rabbit, it was – " He made hoppy motions with his hands, his eyes crinkled and delighted.

Brendon blinked at him.

Ryan settled down next to Brendon, folding his limbs carefully. "I liked the Walk Upside Down boots best," he said, a decided tone in his voice.

Jon shook his head. "Ryan," he said. "_Bunny hops."_

Spencer rolled his eyes. He crossed his legs and sunk down till he was at about the same level as the rest of them. "The rocket boots were more practical," he said. "There are probably heaps of practical uses for boots that make you zoom like that."

Brendon shook his head. "But they – none of them _worked._ Didn't you see?" He hugged his knees tighter. "It's okay if you guys don't want to – " He couldn't finish the sentence.

Spencer stared at him. "They were _great_," he said blankly. "You're going to – you're still going to invent things, right?" He leaned forward, his mouth twisted up as though it was really important that Brendon didn't say no.

Brendon opened and shut his mouth. "You – really?" he said. "I'm – I break things, and I get hurt, and I'm – my inventions _never_ go right, and I don't know why."

Jon punched him in the shoulder, and Brendon yelped. "Brendon," Jon said, his eyes big and dark like when he was a dog, "you made _bunny hopping boots_, and rocket boots and magnet boots that walked upside _down_. You're awesome and we're keeping you." He rolled over onto his back, apparently done.

Spencer huffed his breath out. "Obviously."

Brendon rubbed his shoulder, starting to smile. He felt giddy. "I have, guys, I have an idea," he said. Ryan scrambled upright to look at him, his elbow poking Brendon in the side. "I have, it's the best idea," Brendon said. Ryan and Spencer glanced at each other, their eyes bright. Brendon bit his lip, looking out over the glittering surface of the lake.

Because the problem was going _under_ the water, right? But what if you could walk on top?


End file.
